Come Rain or Shine
by sundroptea
Summary: Set directly after New Moon. Bella could have handled things a little differently, don't you think? Bella/Edward; Jacob


Title: Rain or Shine

Author: Sundroptea

Rating: We'll say PG. We'll say it, but not really be totally sure.

Summary: Takes place after New Moon, before Eclipse, and it was just an exercise to try an get Bella, Edward and Jacob back to where I felt they should be. It's Bella/Edward, because that's right and natural.

Author's Note: Ok, guys. This was once a series of drabbles, and I edited it tonight into one fic. I like this one, because I have to say, a lot of Breaking Dawn left me scratching my head. I still like Twilight and I adore The Host, but you could read the pressure that Ms. Meyer was under with the publishing of that tome. Anyway, I hope you all don't mind one person's take on how things might have been handled differently. Have fun reading!

***

The dust kicked up by my tires as I drove onto the reservation seemed to billow outward in a mushrooming cloud. I felt like it drew eyes, and those eyes weren't all that friendly.

I pressed the break, slowing slightly, wondering if it wasn't a bad idea to come after all. The sun glinted just then off the red, metallic paint of the motorcycle in the bed of my ancient truck and reflected off the rear-view mirror directly into my eyes. My motorcycle- which had spent the last month under _padlock and key._

Right. A fresh was of resolve swept over me. Jacob Black and I were going to have a _chat._

***

It was hot, for here. It hadn't rained in almost two weeks, and in Forks that pretty much means 'drought.' I leaned against the rail on Jacob's porch, and felt the sweat drip down my back. I'm kind of ashamed. It couldn't be much more than seventy-five. In Phoenix today it was well over ninety. I still check the weather report there- force of habit?

I didn't knock, just waited, knowing he'd be home soon. I could hear Billy moving around in the house, a muttered Quiluete curse as his wheel stuck on something. I watched patiently for signs of teen wolfism to approach on the parched horizon. It was a pleasant wait in spite of the task ahead of me. Freedom was still new enough that I could appreciate the novelty of fresh air and an open sky.

I heard them before I saw them. Part wolf or not, they were still just teenagers. Loud teenagers. It struck me that it had been a long time since I had heard Jacob laugh. Yet there he was, clearly having a bang up time of it with his new furry friends. I went from neutral to foaming at the mouth in less than no seconds. He promised! He promised that we'd be friends forever, and that we wouldn't let pressure ruin what we had.

And he's going to keep that promise if I have to beat the resolution into him.

The pack of immense boys came to a stop at the start of the drive. They all looked at me, and I saw Sam shake his head. And, before I knew it, I was moving at a clip.

I don't know what I thought plowing into him would accomplish but I would be lying to you if I said it didn't feel _ridiculously _satisfying. He probably didn't feel it, but I did and that's enough. He rocked back a bit, more for my sake than anything, because I seriously could have hurt myself on his torso, the big dumb dogface. His face was dark and he shuddered a bit, growling, but then he looked at me rubbing my shoulder gingerly and started laughing.

It wasn't the kind that would make me stop wanting to smack him.

"It's okay, guys. I got this." He nodded at them, and they all shrugged, continuing on their way towards what looked like the woods. I caught Embry giving me an apologetic look while Sam gave Jake a warning one. I couldn't glare at one without glaring at the other so instead I just focused my attention on the sole werewolf left in front of me. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and was radiating unfriendliness.

"Did the bloodsucker teach you that? Cause, you know, nice." He was still laughing slightly, so I decided that I was going to handle this as badly as possible.

"Oh, I'm sorry? Are we speaking again? Because I've called you no less than fifty times since I've been GROUNDED thanks to your little stunt with my motorcycle, all with no answer." He shifted a bit, but didn't respond. "Oh, the almighty Jacob Black has nothing to say about royally jerking me over?"

"It was for your own good! Not that you seem to understand what that is anymore," he ground out. I was thirteen years too old to do it, but I stamped my foot.

"You know what I'm sick of? I'm sick of people trying to decide what my own good is! I'm a big girl! I am extremely capable of handling myself!"

"Yeah, Bella, great job on that so far! Tell me, how many times have you almost died in the past year? Oh, don't bother counting your leech's little suicide pact. Cause he's never even coming _close_!" His whole body was twitching, and I had never seen him angrier.

Good. We match.

"You have _no right_! How dare-!"

He interrupted me with a voice was that was part snarl. "What do you _want_, Bella?"

I snapped.

"Would you like an itemized _list?_ Let's see, where to _start_… I want you to stop acting like a petulant brat. I want Charlie to calm down and stop losing his mind every time I go out or do something. I want for an ancient band of vampires to not be out for my blood! I want Victoria to be _gone_ and _buried_. But most of all, and this is the one I think that you have an extra special problem with, I want Edward! I want him in every way possible and that just kills you, Jacob Black."

It was like I slapped him. Or, like if I were at all strong and slapped him. He froze completely, mouth hanging open. A wave of remorse swept over me. That was out of line, I should never have-

"HE'S A VAMPIRE BELLA!" Well, okay, that was _roared_ in my _face_. "You can't possibly want him! He's got you under some sort of spell! Didn't you say that one of them, like, controls feelings? It must be using that one to-" I had nothing to throw at him except for my keys, but at least for once, I aimed true.

"You hit me with your keys!" he sounded absolutely scandalized.

"You've been avoiding me for _weeks_!" Two could play that game.

"You want him to _kill_ _you_!"

"You want to kill _my boyfriend_!"

"You rejected me for a _bloodsucker_!"

And there it was. Finally. I shook my head, gently.

"No, Jake. Not for a bloodsucker. For Edward. And I didn't reject you. You're my best friend. I love you so much it's killing me not to see you. But…"

My voice was soft, and if he weren't Wonder Wolf I doubt he'd be able to hear me.

"I breathe for him."

We sat down on his porch in the fading sunlight. I shivered a bit; the heat had finally broken, and I could see the clouds roiling at the edge of the sky.

Ahh, Forks.

"So, scale of one to ten, how pissed at me are you?" he looked sheepish, and it was comical on such a massive form.

"Same question?" I leaned my head on my knees and smiled at him. His giant paw stretched the gap, and when I took it, he pulled me over to where he was, sighing.

"This doesn't change anything, though." His voice was somber.

"BS," I said flatly, my face slightly muffled against his beefy shoulder. I was glad of him, and the heat on this newly cold night, although his ridiculous temperature will never seem quite natural.

He pulled back. "Bella…"

"No. I'm done with it. He's a vampire, you're a werewolf, and I love you both. Just 'cause the two of you can't seem to not be mythical, it doesn't mean I have to pay for it." He gave me that look he only ever gives me when he thinks I'm being crazy.

"Isn't there a little more to it than that, Bells?"

"Nope." I was firm, smirking at his bemused expression. "You made me a promise, Jacob Black, and you aren't a liar."

"Pushy little human, aren't you?" he said, and the fact that he was a bit choked up made me a little misty too.

"Only when I have to be, furball. Now, it's getting late, and I'm pretty sure you have some homework to attend to…" I got up, brushing off my jeans.

"So what, now you're my mother too?"

"And I don't want any of your sass about it either!" I swatted him. He looked like the old Jake.

"Bella… I-"

I looked up into his freshly troubled face, so beloved. "Jake."

"You know I still feel-"

"I know."

"Then what-"

"You know where things stand, Jake. If I've hurt you by being who I am, I'm sorry. But I can't give him up. And I won't give you up. We are just going to have to find a way to make this work."

He didn't look entirely satisfied, but the smile he gave me was genuine. "I love you, Bells."

"I love you, too. Now get my bike. I'm scared Charlie is going to take the gun to it."

***

It was dark by the time I got home. I saw the cruiser in the driveway, and if my eyesight wasn't giving out completely, I could just make out Charlie's agitated form pacing in front of the window.

Gah.

I opened the door, intending to be comforting, but I was unable to entirely contain my good mood. "Hi, Dad!"

"Where have you BEEN, young lady? I've been worried sick."

I checked my watch. It was half past seven. "Um, Dad. It's half past seven. _And_ I left you a note."

I pointed to the kitchen where I had left a post-it stuck to the microwave. He didn't even pause.

"All it said was that you were going out!" he fumed. I blinked at him.

"Yes, Dad. Because I'm not grounded anymore." I was really trying to be as gentle as possible with this. I do worry about his stress.

"You could just as well be again, missy!"

Missy? Thanks, no. I marched into the kitchen.

"Let's be reasonable," I called, as I pulled out the ingredients for the casserole. "I did my time, Officer Swann, and I've paid my debt to society."

"You're on parole," he grumbled, sitting at the table.

"I think you mean 'released without prejudice.'"

"I'm pretty sure I don't."

When I didn't respond, except to smile at him indulgently, he wrinkled his nose at me and retired to the living room and the news.

The timer had just dinged on the oven when I heard the soft knock that could only mean one thing. I just managed in my haste to close the oven door and get the pot holders off without serious injury, but it was a near thing.

"No, Bella!" my dad called futilely from the living room where the sounds from one game or another floated in, like audio/visual Charlie-balm. "He's not coming in here!"

"Yes, he is!" I called back. He does this every time. It's even mellowed out some, so there's a lot to be thankful for. I smiled, opening the door, remembering the reconciliation. An awful lot.

His arms were around me the second I managed to undo the latch.

"I missed you," his voice, honey golden like his eyes, sent ripples up my spine. I had missed him too.

I pulled back enough so that I could look at his face, and his pupils were larger than normal. I was fascinated.

And surprised. But that was because he was sliding his hands up the back of my shirt, cold, beautiful fingers tracing the path of the ripples. He dropped kisses all along my throat; my heart began pumping strangely. He pulled back just long enough for me to read the emotion on his face.

"You smell like _him_," he whispered softly, jealous but not accusing

I started to pull away, embarrassed, but his strength is a palpable thing. He held me, sliding his cheek against mine, tracing my cheekbone with his lips. I wasn't sure I hadn't died.

"Things went well, then?" he murmured, large thumbs coming around to brush down my hipbones. I couldn't remember language, so the noise that left me kind of went something like: unggh.

Those damn thumbs trailed along the bottom of my ribcage, his hands moving once again to cradle my back. He arched me backwards slightly, so that he could sweep small kisses across my lips. Unghh, indeed.

It was a shock then, when he let go of me completely; in a single instant I was upright and he was a respectable distance from me. Charlie rounded the corner as I tried to work out what had just happened. I must look insane, glassy eyed, in a trance. I shook my head, snapping out of it, as I registered that words were being spoken. Crap.

"Out of the question!"

"What's out of the question?"

"I promise you, sir, I will have her back by 11:15 on the dot."

"Where are we going?"

"Nowhere!" "Dinner."

"I'll get my coat!"

"No, you won't, either! Isabella Marie Swann, for all that you are eighteen years old, I am still your father, and that means that my word is due a little respect!"

"Dad!"

"Sir, please understand that I mean you absolutely no disrespect. I simply hope to help atone for my mistakes by taking your daughter to dinner, as she deserves to be taken."

My face flushed beet red at that, so I turned hastily to retrieve my shoes from the rack behind me.

"I don't like you, Cullen. I don't think you're good for Bella."

"Dad! I gasped again, this time completely horrified.

Edward, in all his ethereal splendor, looked my dad straight in the eye.

"I have erred greatly in the past, leading you to make a perfectly logical assumption. But I promise you, Charlie, _I swear to you,_ that I will make sure that she is never harmed again."

Charlie looked more than slightly stunned. I don't know weather it was the sincerity in his words, or the sheer force of Edward's presence. The Cullen family, they are just so persuasive. Hurrah?

"If you do, you'll answer to me," was Charlie's gruff response. "I want you back here by 11:30, Bella."

It took me all the way to the car and through the buckling of my seatbelt before I felt like I was the person who owned my limbs again. I turned to Edward whose loose grip on the wheel I would have preferred not to have seen. I raised my hand to block out the sight presented by the windshield-y half of the car.

"Where are we going?" I asked, enjoying the sensuous curve of his generous mouth, though not the fact that I could see all of it, meaning he wasn't watching the road. "Port Angeles? Peru? Portugal?"

"My house. You are going to bathe."

"What?!" My mouth fell open, and I was sure that there were no sensuous curves to anything I was displaying.

"I told the truth before when I said you smelled like him." The rumble behind his words did things to my nerves that I don't understand. "I would like it, please, for you to smell like Bella once more."

The trees cut dark swaths against the drape of stars behind. The thought of his shower sent my mind to places that they had no place being. The thought of me in his shower… I decided to try to reason with him.

"But I have none of my shower things. So, at most, I'd only smell like you."

His mouth looks best wicked. "That, too, would be acceptable."

The rest of the ride was silent, although I can attest that it was not unpleasant, until a thought occurred to me.

"Does that mean that you _lied _to _Charlie_?" I asked, shocked.

"Of course not! Don't be ridiculous, Bella. I happen to have a full and nutritious meal prepared and awaiting your consumption in the very home where you will get the sti- smell of that- Jacob off of you. It will be piping hot, just as soon as you step into the kitchen."

Of course, he would have to start. "Edward, I've finally gotten Jake straightened out. Do I have to do you next?" Oh sweet cheddar.

His eyes flashed toward me, amused and… something else. "Interesting phrasing."

Red as tomato gravy, I sat with my face buried in my hands.

"It came out wrong!" I bleated.

"There's nothing that you should be doing with Jacob that you aren't doing with me. And a great many things in reverse the other way."

"When will this stop being funny, do you think?" I felt the car slowing but there was no way I was moving my hands to look.

Lucky he was there to do it for me.

"When you smell like me again."

Just then, the clouds broke, and the rain came back, and the world was right again.


End file.
